No man is completely happy
So many and so varied are the evils that beset us in life, and so much are we dependent for our happiness on circumstances beyond our control, that it is not possible for any man on earth to attain to a state of perfect felicity. Health of body and mind is an important condition of happiness. But mental and bodily suffering would seem to be the common lot of all men. We seldom realize how greatly our happiness is dependent on others. Before we can be completely happy, every one of those with whom we come into contact in daily life, friend, servant, stranger, relation, must combine to please and humour us. Besides, our interests and our affections have so wide a range that we can be quite happy only if all those whom we know and love are happy too. The sentiment of compassion, which is implanted in the hearts of all of us, will prevent us from being perfectly happy so long as we are aware of even a single instance of misery or suffering. Moreover, absolute happiness is not possible except in a state of perfect contentment. But human nature is so constituted that this condition is foreign to it. The more we have, the more we want. Alexander the Great was not content with overcoming of the whole world, but actually wept for more worlds to conquer. The satisfaction of any one of the conditions named above is outside the bounds of probability. The hope for the satisfaction of all of them simultaneously is the dream of the impossible. It is no doubt that this made Solon, the philosopher, to say that no man should be called happy till be dead. We may well ask whether this failure to achieve perfect felicity has not an injurious effect upon our character. On the contrary, the difficulties and sufferings that we undergo are real blessings in disguise which help to develop our character. The discipline our soul and tend constantly to remind us of God giver of all, and of that hereafter in which alone we may hope enjoy perfect bliss.
